Timing for starting a flock

[8 Chicks 1967]

Packing peanuts refers to male chicks that are added to your order to help provide additional warmth.

X2 It's usually cockerels most of the time. If not....it's a mix that's off standard.

 

[Clucksworth12]

I would say there are definitely advantages to getting them in April. The main problem most are faced with when getting chickens later in the year is that the time comes that they are to big for the brooder, but if your coop doesn't have a heat lamp, it is to cold for them to go there! This of course is not a problem if you have a heat lamp coop and/or not harsh winters!

 

[VHoff]

Packing peanuts refers to male chicks that are added to your order to help provide additional warmth.

Oh, wow, I had no idea! Thanks for the clarification.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

All these post talking about, by the time they go outside... They can go outside in the coop day 1! Use a heat plate or mama heating pad. Why would anyone want chickens in the house? Ewe

Good luck

Gary

 

[bald Rooster]

Do you have your brooder in order, If not there are loads of great threads on this site.
In the south the heat is our problem not the cold.build your coop were you get a breeze. And some shade. Mine is completely open on the north side for ventilation. You are about 650 miles north of me and at a higher elevation.So maybe you might get some tips from locals.
Hatching chicks in Feb,March,and April Might be the best.But it don't matter that much they all grow up and lay eggs.I hatched some late last year and Im still getting pullet eggs now.

 

[Blooie]

I started all my chicks outside in a wire pen in the run. Temps were in the 20s, sometimes dropping into the teens, with snow still falling. They did great. Strong, active, confident....and off all heat and completely integrated with the rest of the flock by 4 weeks old. My first-ever batch I raised indoors with a heat lamp, and by 5.5 weeks it was either them or me! I put them out into the coop. The first two nights I had a heat lamp in there for them. Temps dropped down to 18 and I worried all night long, getting up to check them. They weren’t anywhere near the lamp - they were snuggled all comfy in a ball of beaks and feathers over in front of the pop door. They thrived. The morning of the third day I took the lamp out and I’ve never touched one again.

I ordered those chicks too early for my area, I know that now. I didn’t understand the concept of ordering and scheduling delivery for later at a better time of year, and that was strictly my fault. The day they arrived from MPC - a full day and a half after P.O. tracking showed they already been delivered to me, by the way - it was 17 below zero and late February. I finally put them out on April 1st. If I had waited until the “appropriate time”, according to the conventional way of doing things, they’d have been close to laying in the brooder box because that year our last snowfall was on June 6th.

April is a good time to get chicks in my opinion. However, around here the “normal” spring chick season is still pretty cold, snowy, and blustery, so we almost have to get a head start on things. You can’t go too wrong raising chicks if you just take a page from a broody hen, and they raise their babies successfully in all kinds of weather.

 

[Hopperkiller]

I have reached out to several local farms, hatcheries and individuals because I would rather buy locally. Two of two farms have not contacted me back, 1 of three hatcheries has not contacted back and the two that did do not sex their birds and the individuals I've spoken with have been very helpful but timing is the issue.

This being my first go at chickens I would like them to be social for us as I'm sure that makes it more enjoyable.

It really seems like the mail order hatchery is the way to go (at least for me) because you get what you want, when you want. Hopefully the sexing turns out well but nothing is guaranteed.

Around here we dont have hatcheries but during the spring and early summer tractor supply and numerous feed store have a supply of day old chicks. Its easy to get the number you want and a small assortment of breeds. Check yuor feedstores they could help.

 

[lazy gardener]

All these post talking about, by the time they go outside... They can go outside in the coop day 1! Use a heat plate or mama heating pad. Why would anyone want chickens in the house? Ewe

Good luck

Gary

x 1000!!! Chicks do not belong in the house. Well... perhaps for the first 48 hours to be sure they are eating and drinking well, and using MHP well. But, after that, they belong outside in a good predator proof grow out brooder/coop with a MHP!!! They need to learn how to be chickens right from the get go.

Breathing is good. It is fun. I value my lungs too much to share my living space with dander dust creating critters.

 

[Chullicken]

I start most of mine about that time given 'spring' is March 20 or so. About the time the ground makes for real bad sledding. I decent brooder set up and some knowledge, you can really raise them anytime you want. I know a lot of people that hatch all year long so they have a constant cycling of new and old within their flocks.

 

[henaynei]

Timing matters if you have bad or early winters. Chickens that are hatched in January will grow into maturity in June--at which point, there should be enough sun that they begin laying eggs soon, and will keep laying as winter comes around. This year, we got ours in May--and by October, only a quarter of them had begun to lay. Most still aren't laying, because they never got the sunlight to kick-start the laying process.

This is what I found too.
Hatched mine out last week in April.
Only 1 of 4 had started laying before cold and short days set in.
But all are now laying. Just started right after the Solstice.